The Lies in Us
by Romantiq
Summary: Thor visits Loki after his arrest in Asgard, stirring up memories from the past. A spiritual sequel to "The Truth of Us". However, it works as a one-shot as well. Slash. Thor/Loki. Post-Avengers. One-shot.


**The Lies in Us**

In a shadowed corner of a cell beneath the palace of Asgard, Loki bordered himself between the wall and the edge of his bed, grinding his teeth against the gag in his mouth, ruthlessly provoking the stinging sensation of metal biting into skin.

He had been sequestered within the prison's dark walls for three days since Thor had returned him to Asgard, his sentence carried out, and the Tesseract restored to its rightful place in Odin's vault.

_Thor_. Even the thought of his brother made Loki's blood simmer, a name forever imprinted at the forefront of his mind.

But, beneath the hatred, a veil of frost clung to the depths of his mind, the wild snow and wind and a warm weight at his back that made him feel as though, for once, he was not a shadow in his own home. The tighter the memories held firm in his mind, the more poison Loki diluted them in; the bile of abandonment, the loss of what would never be his, the unrelenting envy that had plagued him since his childhood.

When the door to his cell opened quietly, Loki did not register it at all, struggling against his past, his eyes glazed over with silent rage.

"I'm sorry I've not come to see you sooner, brother," was the low patient voice that stirred him from his dark reverie.

Loki looked up at his visitor, adjusting the gag between his teeth unconsciously so that skin was twisted apart and he began to taste copper in his mouth. Blackness clouded his eyes, darker than shadows.

Thor paused for a drawn out moment as he met Loki's gaze. He could not recall a time when his brother had looked so unlike himself. He hardly recognized him beneath the otherworldly gaze.

"Loki," Thor was on his knees before him in an instant, his hands clasped to either side of Loki's head as he gently willed his brother to look at him. "Where are you?"

Loki's eyes flashed venomously as he tasted more blood.

Thor removed a key from his pocket and reached up again to unlock Loki's constraints, carefully discarding the gag as a look of worry swelled in his bluest eyes when he glimpsed the rivulets of blood stemming from the pool of it in Loki's mouth.

"Loki, I—"

"They would give you the key, wouldn't they?" Loki caustically hissed his first words in three days. "You've never passed up an opportunity to remind me of my place."

"I asked for it," Thor's eyes were a storm. "You've never been so quiet for so long before. I did not like it."

"Oh, well. So sorry to have displeased you, Your Majesty."

Thor moved closer, raising a hand to wipe the red from Loki's lips, but Loki evaded his touch, spitting a mouthful of blood onto Thor's face. Thor dropped his arm to the bedspread below him.

"I despise you," Loki accentuated each word with as much venom as possible, his eyes flaring wildly.

"I have always loved you," Thor whispered at the floor, the blood running slowly down his cheek.

Loki's mouth thinned into a sliver of a sadistic smile. "Well now, that's unfortunate, isn't it? That must be why, after all these years, you'd bask in the sunlight of Father's—of all of Asgard's praise—while I am left behind to pick what I can from the scraps of your glory. Why every word of love and sincerity I ever spoke to you fell unheeded upon your ears, arrogant and reckless as you've always been. Why every waking moment of _my_ life was spent in _your_ shadow and by _your_ side while you convinced yourself that that was where I was happiest. Thank you, _brother_, for loving me _so dearly_. Surely without you I would have fallen from the throne of grace I find myself sitting upon now."

A moment of loaded silence fell between them. Thor still knelt before his brother, his eyes cast down at the floor, while Loki radiated vehemence from every fiber of his being.

"Do you remember the night we went into Jotunheim?" Thor raised his eyes to Loki's, smiling softly.

"The night Odin banished you to Earth?" Loki's eyes narrowed. "How could I forget? It's one of my favourite memories of you."

"No," Thor said patiently, the smile still ghosting his lips. "The night we all lost our senses and went to go fight Frost Giants in the outlying lands."

Loki's face twitched almost imperceptibly, but it did not go unnoticed by the god of thunder.

"We fought together. You were everything but a shadow." Thor's blue eyes shone wetly in the half light, brimmed with tears. "You were my equal. You were my brother."

Loki's clear gaze pierced his brother's own as he sat rigidly before him. "And I am no longer."

"Loki," Thor rose once more, his hands once more on either side of Loki's head as he ran his fingers through raven hair, from the tips of his ears to the nape of his neck. "Come home."

"But brother, I am home," Loki's voice was cold. "You saw to that yourself."

"No," Thor growled deep within his throat. "Not when every word you speak is meant to wound and every move you make is meant to draw you further and further away from us."

"_Us_?" Loki growled. "Mother and Father have long given up any hope they once held for me."

"I haven't," Thor's voice reverberated in his ardor. "I never did."

As Thor continually stroked his fingers through Loki's hair, the latter, though his eyelids fluttered traitorously with every caress, grew aware of a gaping emptiness, a dull ache that permeated his whole being. "There is nothing you can do. There never was."

"No Loki," pleading seeped into the edges of Thor's voice as his held Loki's face tighter. "You don't know that."

"Look at you," Loki smiled again in the darkness, a malicious curve upon his lips, "So desperate to repair something irreparable. It's endearing, really."

"I _know_ you remember." Thor tugged at his brother's night-stained hair, pulling him closer so their foreheads almost touched. "When we fought together, that night in Jotunheim, we were equals. You know we were. We were not princes and shadows, or first-borns and abandoned sons. One and the same, Loki—you promised me that _that_ was our one truth."

"That was one night in the midst of thousands," Loki's voice dropped as he looked down at him, "our existence does not hinge on that. We are no longer ourselves and that is no longer our truth. You've been chasing a memory."

"I hear that memory in your voice now, brother," a tear slid down Thor's face. "I know you are not completely lost to me."

"You are as stupid as always." But, a softness in Loki's voice betrayed him as Thor continued running his fingers calmly through his hair.

An echo of silence passed over them as Loki studied the blue storm in his brother's eyes, and Thor searched for his brother in Loki's. There was only hate and emptiness left to conceal him, and those two things Loki clung to with an iron fist, still struggling to extract even the smallest victory over his brother.

But suddenly, the fingers threaded through his dark hair stilled, and the storm in Thor's eyes seemed to quiver.

"Loki."

It was a single word, resounding as if spoken by a ghost from years ago, clear and quiet and real and imagined all at once. And in a breath, Loki found himself pressed against the wall of the dark chamber, beneath the weight of his brother, a sensation that had haunted him into the deepest corners of depravity.

Thor's mouth coupled desperately with his, one hand laced through raven hair and the thumb of the other painting invisible brushstrokes over his jawline. Loki felt the dampness of Thor's tears against his own face as he clung to his brother, his nails digging into exposed flesh as he felt the frigid wind of Jotunheim in Thor's every touch. Snow and ice burned beneath his eyelids as he allowed himself to recall that delicate moment, when they had been something beyond themselves.

He thought it a weakness; it was something permanently lost, but knowing that Thor had tried so hard to recreate it, had cherished it so much, was something that Loki could not understand. His mind would not allow it, but it made his heart beat faster all the same.

Thor lowered his head to Loki's neck, marking his flesh with teeth and tongue as Loki's voice rose like a cloud of frost in the darkness.

"I remember your smile."

Thor paused, his hair dripping in golden ringlets over Loki's chest, before he turned his gaze up to his younger brother, whose eyes glimmered for just an instant with a spark of something he once was. And Thor needed nothing more.

His hands found their way once more into wild black hair, and he kissed Loki deeply, breathing indiscernible oaths into his pale skin. And he remembered when he and his brother had fought side by side, the pride and the raw energy he had felt. That they had both felt.

And it was then that Loki twisted around and pinned Thor gracefully beneath him on the bed. Bright green eyes beheld him from above as Loki deigned to speak the name that so possessed him. "Thor. Please."

And arms of earth and storms caught him around the waist and flipped their worlds like a tide rolling in on itself, as Thor now bowed reverently over Loki, forging paths over exposed flesh with his hands and catching stray moans and sighs with his mouth, his fingers finally returning to stroke obsidian locks. A flurry of bitter wind and frost swelled between them as their eyes closed and bodies shuddered and a night from long ago wove chills down their spines and cooled sweat like ice.

In the aftermath, Thor dipped his head to lie against Loki's shoulder. He wrapped an arm around his brother's waist and closed his eyes against the curve of his neck. "Even if you never come home, I will always try and bring you back."

Loki's gaze rested on the shadows upon the ceiling. In that moment, it was the only thing he ever wanted to know.


End file.
